Disrupt the “Not-Telling” Gatekeeping Issues on the way to Tenure and Promotion for Black Women at HBCUs, MSIs, and PWIs

Black women earn 67% of all doctorates earned by Blacks in the United States, yet their presence in higher education as tenured professors remains dismally low. This drastic gap between educational attainment and employment can largely be traced to the structural constraints of both racism and sexism and continues to create obstacles for talented Black women scholars and researchers.

In Disrupt the "Not-Telling", Leah P. Hollis, Tara B. Blackshear, and Raquel Muñiz have gathered an expert group of Black scholars to examine why Black women have been excluded from tenured roles in higher education institutions. Broken into two sections, the first focuses on empirical research and narratives from Black women in predominantly white institutions, detailing their tenure and promotion experiences. The second unit sheds light on the challenges faced within Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). Employing a range of theoretical approaches, case studies, and phenomenological approaches, the book analyzes higher education processes and their inequitable impact on Black women.

Beyond highlighting the problem, this volume offers theoretically sound approaches and recommends solutions that can assist colleges and universities in creating and maintaining an equitable path to tenure.

Leah P. Hollis is Associate Dean and a professor at the Pennsylvania State University. She is a noted national and international expert on workplace bullying, with her recent book, Black Women, Intersectionality and Workplace Bullying, Intersecting Distress, as an extension of her work on bullying in higher education. Hollis is also the lead consultant in her firm, Patricia Berkly LLC, that offers trainings, workshops keynote speeches, and has served as an expert witness in federal court. In 2024, AERA awarded her the Social Justice in Education Award, in recognition of an extraordinary impact on social justice through educational research.

Tara B. Blackshear is an equity scholar and currently Associate Professor of Kinesology at Towson University. She examines the social determinants of health and physical activity and inequities in education with a particular focus on racism and its impact on Black women, Black youth, and people of color. Dr. Blackshear's research has garnered national and international attention. She has begun to impact institutional change, policy, and practice, as evident in her participation in global media and consultation with organizations and agencies seeking to create culturally responsive, equitable environments. Dr. Blackshear's candid perspective has effectively transformed performative institutional gestures into measurable outcomes with accountability.

Raquel Muñiz is Associate Professor of Law and Education Policy at Boston College and studies how law and policy shape educational equity and how the use of knowledge, including research, can improve law and policy in education in furtherance of educational equity. Her work appears in top peer-reviewed social science and law journals (e.g., Educational Researcher) and has been widely recognized. She is a William T. Grant Scholar (Class of 2029) and the 2024 Education Law Association's Steven S. Goldberg awardee for outstanding scholarship. Her research has been funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, The Spencer Foundation, and AccessLex Institute/American Institutes for Research.

Foreword: Intersections of Scholarship to Explode the 'Not-telling'
Leah P. Hollis

Unit 1: Scholarship as Resistance: Black Women's Empirical and Narrative Perspectives from Predominantly White institutions

Chapter 1: Black Women's Narratives and Solutions from Predominantly White Institutions Retaining Black Women Faculty: Cultivating an Equitable Teaching Environment
Josclynn Brandon and Allison BrckaLorenz

Chapter 2: Walking in Acid Rain: Black Women Faculty, Microaggressions, and Coping Strategies in the Third Space
Leah P. Hollis

Chapter 3: At the Intersection of Race and Gender: The "Burden of Service" as a Barrier to Tenure for Women of Color
Tara B. Blackshear and Eve Famutimi

Chapter 4: Black Women Academics and Title VII Lawsuits: Academic Bullying as a Form of Gendered-Race Discrimination
LaWanda W.M. Ward, Raya D. Petty, and Lori D. Patton

Chapter 5: Learning to Dance in the Rain: Surthrival in Academia While Black and Female
Gina E. Miranda Samuels

Chapter 6:. Black Women's Excellence in Architecture's Gentleman's Profession
Azizi Arrington-Slocum and Daisy-O'lice Williams

Chapter 7: If the Sisterhood Turns Sour: The Tenure Process for a Black Woman at a PWI
Valandra

Unit 2: Misogynoir at Home: Black Women's Narratives and Solutions at Minority Serving Institutions

Chapter 8: The First and Only is Lonely: Trailblazing in Hazardous Conditions
Tara B. Blackshear

Chapter 9: Queen Bees in an Apathetic Ecosystem of Higher Education Incivility at an HBCU
Leah P. Hollis

Chapter 10: Nah, Get Somebody Else to do it: Autoethnography on Resistance to the Superwoman Syndrome During the Pre-tenure Years
Wendasha Jenkins Hall

Chapter 11: Sister Circles as Resistance and Resilience Tools in the Tenure (and promotion) Process
Ernestine AW Duncan and Khadijah O. Miller

Chapter 12: "You Don't Get to Decide My Fate": Narratives of Two Black Women Faculty in Academia
Brenda Muzeta and Leta Hooper

Chapter 13: Black Does Crack: Tenure Process for Black Women in STEM at HBCUs
Felesia Stukes and Rosalyn Reid

Chapter 14: Removing the Obstacles- Offering Solutions
Rhea Thrower and Okianer Christian Dark-Law

Afterword: Resistance Reflection
Raquel Muniz and Leah P. Hollis